Wireless transmission of multimedia data for playback in a multi-speaker environment, e.g., with a video display has become very popular in recent years. Wireless transmission eliminates the need for wires that are annoying and that limit flexibility. Local wireless transmission is usable, for example, in portable home telephone systems, stereo systems, surround sound systems, and home theater systems.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,272,525 titled SYSTEM FOR LOCAL WIRELESS TRANSMISSION OF SIGNALS AT FREQUENCIES ABOVE 900 MHZ, U.S. Pat. No. 5,349,386 titled WIRELESS SIGNAL TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS, METHODS AND APPARATUS, U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,716 titled WIRELESS CD/AUTOMOBILE RADIO ADAPTER, U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,839 titled SYSTEM FOR SHORT RANGE TRANSMISSION OF A PLURALITY OF SIGNALS SIMULTANEOUSLY OVER THE AIR USING HIGH FREQUENCY CARRIERS and U.S. Pat. No. 6,466,832 titled HIGH QUALITY WIRELESS AUDIO SPEAKERS DISCLOSE WIRELESS AUDIO TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS disclose wireless audio transmission systems. Each of these patents is hereby incorporated by reference herein. In some of these patents is described packet transmission of wireless data to a set of nodes for playback by the nodes.
In any wireless transmission system, it is desirable to ensure integrity of wireless data transmissions amongst nodes. In a packet transmission system, packets can be lost. Packet loss is particularly problematic in wireless audio or audiovisual systems as the resultant packet loss may in turn cause corruption of the audio data.